The Night Birds of London.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 938, 21 February 1890, Page 8

The Night Birds of London.

A Waif Tells a Sad Story of Starvation. The following story is communicated tons (says the Evening News and Post) by a man who has sunk to tne vast crowd of the * poor who are always wth us.’ It bears on its face the evidence of truth, and those who read it attentively mav gain a little light UDon one of the most pressing social questious of the day : —“ Six months ago I was summarily dismissed from a responsible position in a provincial bank. I thought I was harshly dealt with, as my fault was more of an indiscretion than a crime —but let that pass. My mind turned to London, and the great maelstrom sucked me in. Try my best, I could not procure a situation, and after a few months

MY SADLY DIMINISHED PURSE showed many a wrinkle. I descended by easy giadation from the third-rate hotel at 3s a night to the coffee-house at Is, and at last to the ‘ doss ' house at 6d. A week in the common lodging-house, during which time my food cost me exactly 2d a day, used up my last penny, and thestieets of London stared me in the face. The lodging-house I patronised is in Newton-street, off Holborn, a respectable enough place of its kind, and mostly frequented by men who have seen better days—decayed clerks, seedy draper* assistants, wrapper addressers, and turf tipsters. Paper collars and cuffs, well-polished but down-at-heel boots, characterise the habitues of Newton-street ‘doss’ house. The paper collars and cuffs and polished boots form the last and only link that con • neets them with respectability. About thirty of us

‘ DOSSERS, ’

were seated in the reading-room—a misnomer, there was nothing to read as a neighbouring clock struck "midnight, myself and two others, silent and sad, on a form near the door. We had no ‘taDner.’ 4 Twelve o’clock ; pay up, gentlemen, or outside,’ rauf' out the manager’s voice. Those who had° the needful paid up; myself and my two neighbours, drapers’ assistants, buttoned up our throadbare, skimpy coats, and filed out into the darkness and the rain. These two, evidently old ‘ dossers,’ gave me

a wrinkle. Each extracted a newspaper from his pocket, and, folding it, placed it across his chest, and buttoned coat and vest tightly over it—a hastily improvised chestpreserver. Poor I Lad no newspaper even ! STRANGE NIGHT BIRDS were perched about. On some stone steps, a few doers from the lodging-house, four women were huddled together silent as dummies, with shawls drawu tightly around head and shoulders. During the summer they may be seen there at all hours of the day and night. It is their home. Sometimes in the early mornings they beg a kettle of boiling water from the lodging-house, to make coffee. 1 turned away from Newtonstreet, up Parker-street a dangerous quarter, the haunt of thieves and of the soiled doves of the pavement—but I was thief-proof—l had nothing to lose. The rain began to patter heavily on roof and pavement, and run in tiny streams from my hat ; people hurried home with umbrellas overhead, or dodged into public-houses. I sought shelter in a gateway in Parker-street. Iu a room right opposite mo—l could see the whole inteiior from where I stood—

A. SCENE OF WILD REVELRY was in full swing. Half a dozen unfortunates, with flushed cheeks and dishevelled hair, were singins, drinking, and quarrelling. The refrain of one lyric ran :

Fill out the beer, lass, and sorrow forget, We’ll all have fine times in the workhouse yet.

‘ Even vice has a roof to cover it, and food and drink to comfort it,’ I thought bitterly. On again anywhere, with weary feet, for I had been walking the whole previous day ; in addition, I suffered much from a pain in my side, no doubt brought on by cold and hunger, for I bad not tasted a particle of food for thirty long hours. The wind now blew in bitter gusts, and I shivered with cold ; besides the hitherto intermittent pain in my side grew to a continuous pang. I tried to earn something by opening a cab door for two ladies, but just as one, prettyfaced and sympathetic, was depositing a silver coin in my hand,

A POLICEMAN HUNTED ME OFF, threatening to lock me up. I stopped at a restaurant window, steaming with tempting eatables. A bluff-faced, kindly-looking man stood behind the counter, and as the last customer had gone, I resolved to tell him my tale—that I was starving. I passed and repassed the door several times, glaring in with hungry eyes. No, I could not do it; I could not beg, although I firmly believe I would have robbed at the time if au opportunity had offered. Here and there I picked up cigar buts and tried to smoke away the hunger, but I was too weak to smoke, and was forced to take a drink of water after a few draws. Then wearily down Fleet-street, whose upper windows were all alight, although it was past one o’clock. Fleetstreet, the great brain of the universe, never sleeps. A shaft of light from a bulbous lamp over the Daily Telegraph office fell on a crust of bread lying in the street. A commissionaire and a cabman stood near, and I was half ashamed to let them see mo pick it np, but HUNGER OVERMASTERED SHAME.

I swooped on it ravenously, and, although hard and grittv, I thought it the most delicious morsel I had ever tasted. And I had come to this ! Strange shadows passed me that night—-well-dressed closely-veiled women—silent and ghost-like, who never speak. The same shadows passed and repassed me again and again, like perturbed spirits who could not rest. Loitering beside a coffee-cart, I saw a lady, deeply veiled, burry to the cart, deposit her penny without a word and, having sipped her coffee, again disappear in the darkness. ' She comes here every night, and does just as she has done now,’ remarked the coffee-man to a customer. Those shadows uto THE GHOSTS OF MIDNIGHT LONDON. I knew that a coffee-shop in Fleet street would open at two o’clock, and if I only had a halfpenny I could get a cup of coffee. I asked a cabman near Blackfriars Bridge if he would buy a little pocket-knife from me. A tobacco-pouch, beautifully worked, and the present of one very de3r, came up with the

knife as I drew my hand from my pocket. The fellow’s eye caugbt the pouch. No, he did not want the knife, but he would buy ‘ that pouch ’if I’d sell it. Hungry as I was, my heart would not allow me to part with it—it was sacred to me. Yet I was crushed and cowed ; the very manhood knocked out of me. The stone seats in the recesses of Blackfriars Bridge were filled with

OUT-ALL-NIGHT MISERABLES. like myself, men, women, and children. They were a queer, uncanny lot, huddled together in all kinds at attitudes, some crouching in corners asleep, some sitting up smoking, all maintaining a dogged silence. Silence is the cry of despair. There they were—there they are every night—ragged, shivering, old men with hunger-pinched features ; old women more ragged and wretched, some cuddling fairy-looking atoms of children to clammy breasts, lads with queer, quizzical, old-manish faces —vicious faces. These ore the forgotten lepers of London. Towards morning they scattered away just as ghosts flit. On the end of the seat on which I rested a female was partly lying, partly sitting, the skirt ot her dress drawn over her head ; hut her face shone through it, pale and white, in the opening dawn. She- was certainly not more than fourteen. Her face was so bloodless that I thought she was in a faint, and after coughing once or twice to attract attention, I called, but she mad 6 no sign. Then I went over to her and lightly touched her hand. SHE WAS COLD AND DEAD. I shouted aloud, and two policemen hurried up. * I know the face,’ one of them said, * she tried to drown herself some time ago. She has thrown the Thames policeman’s trouble on our hands.’ London does not start to wide-awake life at a bound. It rubs its eyes and stretches its legs, and yawns for some hours before it leaps to lusty life. I limped away through the byways, for I hated the thoroughfares. Maraet carts loaded with vegetables, began to rumble through the streets towards Covent Garden Market, traps spuu up and down Fleetstreet bearing away piles of the first editions of the morning papers ; labourers stepped briskly along with their breakfast tea iu little cans ; the street sweepers began to trundle their great revolving brushes along ; here and there a shop window opened a shuttered eyelid, and by seven o’clock the whole city was wide-awake and bustling. I dragged myself away out of the busy street to the slums of Drury Lane, and completely * done up ’ I flung myself down in a gateway to sleep.”